Primary

Spreading a musical virus

Karen Marshall, co-author of the Get Set! Piano series and How to Teach Instrumental and Singing Lessons – 100 Inspiring Ideas, shares her advice for encouraging children to teach themselves daily through musical games in the playground.  Spreading a musical virus Every Wednesday I work at a Primary school – teaching… Read More

10 Ways To Give Better Feedback

Feedback comes in all shapes, sizes and flavours but the bottom line is that it must serve a learning function to bring about transformation and improve performance. Feedback needs to be expansive and dynamic, not limited and static so that it focuses hearts and minds on progress. Be on time… Read More

10 Things Effective Teachers Do

Looking to become a more effective teacher? Read John Dabell’s list of the 10 things that effective teachers do. If only we could bottle the skills, knowledge, behaviours, qualities and competences required to be an excellent teacher.  The contents could be poured onto the heads of newly qualified teachers so… Read More

Are atlases still relevant for the modern classroom?

Here’s why Primary Teacher Sarah M. Thurlbeck believes atlases are essential in her classroom: The “mental map” In this digital age of global connectivity it is more important than ever that pupils develop some sort of global “mental map”. They need to be able to visualise where they… Read More

Getting Set! for a flying start – advice for teaching new musicians

Make the lesson personal in some way. This can be something as simple as working at the rhythm of the child’s name or including their name in a piece - like in Get Set! tutor 1 - Bounce High, Bounce Low where the child’s name is included. This can make them feel special, it’s personal to them. Read More

The new school year-
the science subject leaders’
to do list

This blog has been written by Jane Turner, Snap Science Series Editor and Director of the Primary Science Quality Mark. Plan your monitoring activity Ask yourself: • How can I find out what is happening with science? • Which areas are strengths to celebrate and which areas need to… Read More

Equipping children for their future through music and song

Thank you to music education expert Andy Silver for this guest post. For me, education is about more than just academia: of equal if not greater importance is the development of a child’s personal capabilities and the growth of attributes for life. The question of coping in ‘the real world’… Read More

Teaching music through rhymes

Thank you to Get Set! Piano author Karen Marshall for the below guest post. Teaching music through rhymes One of the most successful ways to teach rhythm is through rhyme and if the rhyme has silly words – even better. How often is a tricky rhythm corrected once words… Read More

Questioning for Mathematical Reasoning

The 2014 National Curriculum for mathematics has three main aims- it seeks to enable pupils to develop fluency, problem solving and reasoning in mathematics. I work in a relatively large local authority, supporting teachers of mathematics to improve outcomes for pupils, amongst other things. Following the 2016 end of Key… Read More

Explaining a mastery approach to parents/carers

Every new generation of parents must scratch their heads when their children show them their maths homework, with methods of teaching and learning mathematics going through more changes than any other subject. Over the past fifty years there has been rote learning, then ‘new maths’, discovery learning, set theory and… Read More